Judas Flowering by Jane Aiken Hodge Page A

minutes for me to know who is coming to Winchelsea, friend or foe. I am happy to greet so good a friend, sir.”
    â€œI am happy to be so greeted. And I congratulate you on your precautions. These are bad times; and, I hear, you have taken in a particular hostage to fortune.”
    â€œMiss Phillips, of the mythical press? Yes, sir, and it is true that I increased our precautions when she came to live here. You will stay to dinner, I hope, and meet her.”
    â€œI’d like to, but I am making a tour of your district. I am just come from Thunderbolt and have Wormsloe, Bonaventure, and New Hope still to visit. But, forgive me, Mr Purchis, you said ‘mythical press’?”
    â€œWell,” said Hart. “If it existed, would you not think it would be in evidence by now? I can only imagine that it must have been destroyed when poor Mr Phillips’ house was burned.”
    â€œI devoutly hope so,” said Sir James. “But to the point, if you will forgive me for being discourteously brief. I am come on two errands. First, to urge you to come into Savannah for the celebrations of the King’s birthday on the fourth of June. This year, of all years, I wish to make a particular point of the festivities, and I would like to see Purchis of Winchelsea, and his family”—a bow for Mrs Purchis—“established in their town house for the occasion.”
    â€œOh.” Hart suddenly looked younger than his seventeen years. “I had meant, of course, that we should come into town for the celebration, but to stay—” He looked, with appeal, to his mother, then took a deep breath and continued. “To tell the truth, Sir James, I am hard pressed just now to get things on the plantation in proper train before I leave for the north.”
    â€œYes,” said Sir James. “That brings me to the other half of my message. Hart”—he used the Christian name with emphasis—“we are old friends, you and I. Can I not persuade you that this is no moment to be going to the North?”
    â€œIt is not to the North that I am going, sir, but to school.”
    â€œTo Harvard College. Which means Cambridge, in Massachusetts, with those Boston hotheads just downriver. I wishyou would think again, my dear boy.”
    â€œOh, so do I!” Martha Purchis leaned forward eagerly, mittened hands clasped in her lap. “Dear Hart, I haven’t liked to interfere, but, truly, when you think of last winter, when those crazy Bostonians dressed up as Indians and threw all that good tea into the harbour, I cannot make myself like your going there.”
    â€œThey still have some of that same consignment of tea locked up at Charleston, Mother, and refuse to let it be sold.”
    â€œYes, but at least we don’t behave like barbarians down here in the South.”
    â€œNo?” he looked at her from under thick, level brows. “What of Mr Phillips, Mother?” And then, turning back to Sir James Wright. “Forgive us, Sir James, but you will see that this is a subject we have thought much about. And I have made up my mind. Ever since my cousin came home from England I’ve been aware of how much I lack, of education, of knowledge of the world, of everything. I wish with all my heart that I could go to England, but that’s not possible. Harvard College is. President Langdon has accepted me—I mean to go. Surely,” he appealed to Sir James, his tone an apology for the blunt statements, “things are easier now? Have they not understood, in England, that we must be treated no worse and no better than their own voters? After all, they did repeal both the Townshend and the Stamp acts when they understood how ill they were taken over here.” And then, flushing to the roots of his newly combed hair, “Forgive me, sir. I don’t know what I am thinking of to be reading you, of all people, a lecture in politics.”
    â€œI shall